Sunday, May 24, 2009

It was pretty exciting to drive out to the site Friday afternoon and see the roof on the house. It looks great. Perfect color, great material, good lines and the balance couldn't be better. The roof looks like it belongs to the structure. I hadn't been able to visualize what it was going to look like.....even with the decking in place.....but I couldn't be happier with the results.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

On tonight's weather report, the guy said that we were having the first five days without rain since March 3rd through the 8th. That's a lot of rain. That's a whole lot of days without much (if ANY) work being done on the house. But, now we are on a two-working days-roll and maybe there will be something to write about other than magazines, blogger battles, human characteristics of immovable objects and how to find the recipe for Munchies Buttermilk Cake with Warm Caramel Icing. (I'd pay big bucks for that one.) (I even tried, unsuccessfully, to bribe a CHILD into getting that recipe from his mother who MIGHT have it.)

Back to the shipping containers. Other than Todd moving a lot of dirt around the house so that it looks a whole lot more decent, it has pretty much been sitting there "as is". There is glass in all of the windows, but no front door and both porches are still not completely cut out in readiness for the screened walls. In other words, I can sit in the living room in my lawn chair, eating my lunch, and look out through the glass window and watch the river, then turn my head toward the porch and have to shoo the wren out of that open space so it won't be nesting while I am........then I can wander into my bedroom, while eating an apple, look through those windows, walk over to that porch with its open space and throw the apple core off the edge and down the hill. (It's organic, so it's okay.)

The more days I spend doing that, and there have been quite a few, the harder those habits may be to break when the house is finished.....and, talk about the potential for a messy house.......birds, bird droppings, apple cores, peanut shells, lawn chairs. Rural/trash chic. But, for now, there isn't a better place to eat lunch in the world, as far as I'm concerned. Easy in. Easy out.

The plan for these non-rainy days is to get the (TPO) roof on and then insulate and start with the sheet-rock. I think the small container that will be the shelter/storage area and support for the canopy/carport will be put in place as well. Then it will have to be painted.

Meanwhile, I'll be working on the path that goes down to the river and attempt to get it clear enough to drag my kayak down to the gravel bar and back up to the house. That's where the "Therapy" comes in. There is a lot to be said for lopping and weed-eating and its beneficial effect on the mental health of "enthusiastic old ladies". One can definitely see where one has been...where one has made improvements.....and where one needs to go. A therapeutic life lesson, for sure. And when this is executed on a forty-five degree slope that is chock full of very old brush, brambles, junk trees, bugs, ticks, snakes and poison ivy, you can bet that the therapy intensifies. Have you noticed? I think I seem to be a little more subdued and rational the last couple of days. My shins are itching like crazy and I have a huge crop of rock-flying bruises, but serenity doesn't come without a price.

Stay tuned for a progress report after these dry working days. I expect things to really "take off" now. With the shipping container house, that is......not the shins and bruises.